Bond BD assault, part deux

Note: I know these came out two weeks ago. It takes time to go through five films and their extras, especially when you don’t get the product in advance.

Here’s the second wave of James Bond BD releases. Headlining is the newest film, “Quantum of Solace.” “Goldfinger,” considered by both fans and critics to be the best of the Bond films, is the big headliner in the reissues, and the surprise entry is “Never Say Never Again.”

A direct sequel to “Casino Royale,” Daniel Craig’s second outing as Bond has him seeking justice for Vesper Lynd’s killers and finding a bigger conspiracy than either he or MI6 had anticipated. It seems that an organization named Quantum is seeking control of a major natural resource in Bolivia, and is using everything from charitable fronts to financing dictators to get it.

Critics blasted this one for being a bit too heavy on action, but I found it about average. My major issue was I didn’t find Mathew Amaric’s villain that threatening; probably the least impressive since Michael Lonsdale’s wooden performance as Drax in “Moonraker.”

The extras are not very spectacular; pretty much your standard making-of featurettes and location scouting. Most of them seem to cover the same ground in slightly different ways. The music video “Another Way to Die” featuring Alicia Keys and Jack White is slightly interesting for the contrasting styles of its stars, but music videos have all started to look the same to me.

Note: the next three films are also packaged together as the James Bond Blu-ray Collection Three-Pack, Vol. 3, retailing for $89.98. Personally, I prefer the individual discs because of the way I organize my collection, but you might want to save the $15 by getting the box set.

Goldfinger

MGM, 110 minutes, PG, $34.99

Most people would list this as the best of the Bonds. Sean Connery takes his third outing as the intrepid spy, going up against a billionaire (Gert Frobe) who is obsessed with gold and increasing his holdings. Terrific action and plotting make up for some obvious holes in the film; mostly the idea that you could gas an entire Army post, and Oddjob’s (Harold Sakata) hat would cut his fingers off every time he touched the rim.

Restoration quality is fabulous. I placed my 1999 “Special 007 Edition” in my standard upconvert player and the BD in my Playstation 3 player, matched the scene and hit pause. The Special Edition version, which had always looked fine to me, now is distinctly much muddier and darker than the BD edition. The restoration folks at Lowry are doing it right. Comparing the two editions:

Same:

* Audio commentary with Director Guy Hamilton

* Audio commentary with cast and crew

* Making-of documentary

* “Goldfinger Phenomenon” documentary

* Still gallery

* Publicity featurette

* Radio interviews with Sean Connery

* Trailer, TV and radio spots

New:

* BBC interview with Sean Connery from the set of “Goldfinger”

* Screen tests for the role of Goldfinger with Theodore Bikel and Tito Vandis

* “On Tour with the Aston Martin DB5″ featurette

* Honor Blackman (Pussy Galore) open-ended interview for use by local television stations. The stations would have one of their anchors “interview” Blackman with prepared questions, and she would “respond.”

* “Mission Control” selected clips/lines from the film

Moonraker

MGM, 121 minutes, PG, $34.99

Roger Moore, on his fourth outing as Bond, takes 007 into outer space (well, near earth orbit, anyway) after an American space shuttle is hijacked on its way to London on top of a 747. His investigation leads him to the manufacturer, the enigmatic Drax (Lonsdale), who he discovers is up to no good.

As stated earlier, Lonsdale’s performance of Drax is distinctly wooden; the man looks, walks and talks like he’s got a steel pole sewn in the back of his costume. Lois Chilles is Dr. Holly Goodhead (another double entendre Bond Girl name) is slightly better, but still not that enticing. Richard Kiel returns as Jaws, one of the best henchmen of the series. Too bad they turned him into a good guy at the end.

The transfer is very good; the “main complex” where the Moonraker shuttles are built still looks like a relief from the Death Star, but it’s in much sharper focus. And the girl walking through the jungle after Bond runs his motorboat off the cliff: well, let’s just say that the still/step key reveals details not seen before with such clarity.

Same:

* Audio commentary from director Lewis Gilbert, cast and crew

* “Inside Moonraker” original documentary

* “The Men Behind the Mayhem – The Special Effects of James Bond” documentary

* Still gallery

* Trailer

New:

* Audio commentary from Roger Moore

* “007 in Rio” original 1979 production featurette spent a fourth of the time on scenes not even filmed there. Several kiss outtakes are included, along with plenty of bikini-clad butts. It’s not really a travel featurette as it is a collection of clips.

* “Learning to Freefall” skydiving test footage: the interesting quote is that with the exceptions of close-ups of Moore and Kiel (Jaws), everything was shot live using a special lens and camera.

Skydiving, cable car sequence storyboards

The World Is Not Enough

MGM, 128 minutes, PG-13, $34.99

Pierce Brosnan’s third turn as Bond where he’s tasked to protect the wealthy daughter (Sophie Marceau) of an oil baron who has just been released from a long kidnap situation. Of course, there’s a bigger plot involving stolen Russian nuclear warheads and a criminal mastermind who can’t feel pain. Denise Richards stars as a feisty nuclear scientist who is trying to help defuse the bombs. Robbie Coltrane reprises his comedic role as Valentin Zukovsky, the former KGB agent turned capitalist.

After “Goldeneye” and “Tomorrow Never Dies,” this was a bit anti-climactic for Brosnan’s Bond. But even Connery and Moore made some clunkers (perhaps Moore more than Connery, but that’s a matter of opinion). The transfer is closer in quality to the “Special 007 Edition” version, but that’s because not as much time has elapsed since its 1999 film release.

* Tribute to Desmond Llewelyn (“Q”): Music video set to “The Spy Who Loved Me (Nobody Does It Better)” by Carly Simon; collection of Q’s best one-liners.

* Still gallery

* “The Bond Cocktail” is a look at all of the formula items that make up a Bond film, mostly relating to this film: “Bond, James Bond;” the vodka martini “shaken, not stirred;” the recurring characters; the Bond women; the stunts; the double entrendres; the villain; the locations; the stunts; the music; the title sequence.

Never Say Never Again

Fox, 134 minutes, PG

DVD: $19.98

BD: $34.98

Connery returns as a middle-aged James Bond, 12 years after his last turn in “Diamonds Are Forever” in a thinly-veiled remake of “Thunderball.” This time, the nuclear weapons stolen are Tomahawk missiles and SPECTRE’s extortion demands are in the billions now.

The transfer hardly seems worth it; there’s no extreme increase in clarity. But seeing how this Bond film was not part of the official EON Productions canon, it didn’t get the Lowry restoration treatment.

Since the 2000 DVD had no extras other than the theatrical trailer, the extras are a definite upgrade. However, the editing is rather slow paced; the interviews with director Irvin Kershner (“The Empire Strikes Back”), the script writers, producers and some of the stars consist mostly of talking heads.

The information they present, however, is not without interest to Bond fans. It’s well known that EON protects the Bond copyrights, but Bond author Ian Fleming had written a nuclear extortion novel with Kevin McClory and Jack Whittingham which had tanked, so Fleming rewrote most of it as “Thunderball.” A legal battle ensued, which ended with McClory getting producer and writer credit for “Thunderball.”

Producer Jack Schwartzman, husband of actress Talia Shire (Adrian in the “Rocky” films), wanted to make a Bond film, so he seized upon the legal loopholes and convinced Connery to come back after having sworn off the character. His wife is credited with the film’s title, telling him to “never say never again” after being offered the part.

The film had a number of rewrites, going from good to bad and back to good again. Of course, there were some bad decisions made, such as the choice to put a dreamy song over the opening hostage rescue sequence. Ultimately, it was Connery’s presence as Bond that saved the film, according to Kershner.

There is a slight irony at work here; the film was originally released through Orion Pictures, a unit of Warner Bros., whereas all of the Bond films were United Artists releases. Through various mergers and selloffs, the ownership of this film is now in the hands of MGM/Fox, which is also responsible for releasing the other Bond films in the series.

Should you get this one? This one is mostly for Bond purists; the ones who want their collection to be complete. As this one is something of a bastard child, compared to the EON productions, it didn’t get the high profile treatment the other Bond films are getting. I think I would have preferred that they waited and spent time getting the extras right.